I just finished watching a great Time Magazine "10 questions" with Chaz Bono

[Poll_Blind]

You can watch it here. Chaz was being pretty honest about his feelings about being a man, feeling what it's like to have that much testosterone and so on...but most of all, how natural he felt in his own skin, despite having a bit of a bumpy ride.

I thought that was pretty cool and Chaz looked a bit nervous too and I found myself really hoping that he gets into a place where he feels more at ease with everything, both where he's been and where he's going.

And that got me thinking that a person like Chaz Bono is lucky because maybe not everyone has access to gender reassignment surgery and/or all of the other medial, pharmaceutical and theraputic materials that go along with that- and what life has to be like for them. And, further, what it must have been like as a transgendered person 100, 200, 500 years ago, whatever.

With that in mind are there any famous or notable diaries or large-ish bodies of work from the transgendered from, say, 100-200 years ago? I would like to read a bit how people coped (or didn't) with such strong feelings about themselves- their current selves and the gender they yearned to be- in a world where gender reassignment surgery or any of that wasn't just financially unattainable, but where the concept itself did not exist as we think of it today.

Do such examples exist? Specifically, I'm interested in someone like Chaz (a woman wishing to be a man) 100+ years ago who was able to write about what it was like.

Odd question, I guess, but you folks are a pretty good resource to tap with questions like this.

Thanks! :hi:

PB